Background

Spring, the app preloader that's integrated with Rails 4.1+, and SimpleCov, everyone's favorite test coverage analyzer don't seem to play nice. The symptoms are differing results when you run rspec with and without Spring. The Spring results will skip many files because of eager loading; SimpleCov doesn't . . .

Root your Android device without using Boot Camp

tl;dr

Use Kingo to root your android device via VirtualBox with a free Windows image. Just make sure to install the VirtualBox extension pack and enable USB 2.0 support. This may very well work on Linux as well.

Background

Kingo Root seems to be the easiest way to root most modern Android devices. I was excited to . . .

Leveraging Gmail's best feature

Vagrant is an invaluable tool for creating a standardized virtual environments that make it incredibly easy to bring on new developers. Instead of requiring users to install Postgres, Redis, Elasticsearch, etc to be able to run and develop on your app, you just give them 3 simple steps (hopefully they don't even need the first two):

The tale of a hosting migration that shaved 40% off response times

tl;dr

We had a positive experience moving Cult Cosmetics, a rails app, from Heroku to OpsWorks, with response times reduced by ~40%. If you're thinking about making this move, DO IT, but realize that it will probably require more time & effort than you expected.